True Deception

In what appears will be an ongoing series on how to misuse language in an attempt to show how prolifers "misuse" language, Planned Parenthood has posted Dictionary of Deceit: Part One on their web site. The fact that this crap gets past editors and is featured on the front page of their web site, almost makes me embarrassed for Planned Parenthood.

The reality is that pro-choice people promote a "culture of life" and a "hospitable society" in which women's lives are valued and every child is wanted and loved.

That's as long as you don't count the unborn as children.

microscopic Americans
The spin: Coined several years ago by a columnist in the National Review, the term implies that stem-cell research is "cruelly dismissive" of the potential "citizens" that "microsopic Americans" (a.k.a. discarded embryos) would become if adopted instead of used for scientific research.

The truth: According to a 2000 study, there are some 400,000 discarded pre-embryos in existence. The couples who produced these pre-embryos subsequently certified that they had made a decision to discard them.

The writer, Chris Hayhurst, is either completely ignorant regarding the future of the 400,000 embryos or a distinguished liar. Multiple new sources, including Salon's hit piece, even Ellen Goodman for goodness sakes, have informed the public that the large majority of these 400,000 embryos are being stored for families who are planning on bringing about another pregnancy. To term the 400,000 embryos as "discarded" is beyond pale.

Also, notice the use of the term "pre-embryo." Isn't it typical that Planned Parenthood is manipulating language in a piece determined to highlight how prolife people "manipulate language?"

Pro-choicer Lee Silver shed some light on the term "pre-embryo" in his book "Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World" when he wrote:

I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.

The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena – where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation – as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. "Don't worry," a doctor might say, "it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body."

"partial-birth" abortion
The spin: The term is meant to call to mind an abhorrent image.

The truth: No such medical procedure exists.

I wonder if Hayhurst is talking about the abhorrent images below. In a way, Hayhurst is right. There is nothing "medical" about partially delivering a child, jamming scissors into their skull, and sucking their brains out. Either way, it's nice to know Planned Parenthood continues to file lawsuits and lobby against bills which hope to ban an abortion procedure that doesn't exist.